Saturday, January 17, 2009
Mike's Homebrewing Notes - First 2 Mr. Beer batches - 17-Jan-2009
The heating pad helped bring temp back up ... and upon close inspection, some activity was seen in the fermenters. (My concerns regarding decreased activity were allayed both by new friends on Mr Beer Fans and a fellow brewer at my workplace). This week I scabbed a jumbo cooler from my workplace (these are used for shipment of large batches of lab samples to and from our facility. (The one I acquired was new/never used). Although I could probably make both fit into this single cooler (still with room for a hot water bottle) I decided not to gouge out the sides to make room for the spigot.
Honey Maibock:
Brew Ha Ha:
Temp staying fairly even when checked - 70F - with refilling water bottles out twice a day. Today is 1 week since pitching. The yeast have settled significantly in the last few days ... still cloudy, but nice layer of trub on bottom of both fermenters. HM less than BHH.
On a secondary note, both shipments of EZ cap bottles that I ordered (one from seller on eBay, one from Midwest Homebrewing arrived late this week. The eBay purchase was <$10 for 5 - 32oz EZ cap bottles (used) ... unfortunately 1 arrived broken so I have only 4 of these. The Midwest purchase, as mentioned in the forums, was for 3 cases of 12 bottles (so ... 36, 16oz bottles) which should be sufficient to bottle the 4 gallons of beer I am making.
Here's a pic of two of the 32oz bottles:
Going to wait one more week (ugh!!) to taste ... the likely that bottling will commence over next weekend ... getting there ...
Cheers / Proost!
The heating pad helped bring temp back up ... and upon close inspection, some activity was seen in the fermenters. (My concerns regarding decreased activity were allayed both by new friends on Mr Beer Fans and a fellow brewer at my workplace). This week I scabbed a jumbo cooler from my workplace (these are used for shipment of large batches of lab samples to and from our facility. (The one I acquired was new/never used). Although I could probably make both fit into this single cooler (still with room for a hot water bottle) I decided not to gouge out the sides to make room for the spigot.
Honey Maibock:
Brew Ha Ha:
Temp staying fairly even when checked - 70F - with refilling water bottles out twice a day. Today is 1 week since pitching. The yeast have settled significantly in the last few days ... still cloudy, but nice layer of trub on bottom of both fermenters. HM less than BHH.
On a secondary note, both shipments of EZ cap bottles that I ordered (one from seller on eBay, one from Midwest Homebrewing arrived late this week. The eBay purchase was <$10 for 5 - 32oz EZ cap bottles (used) ... unfortunately 1 arrived broken so I have only 4 of these. The Midwest purchase, as mentioned in the forums, was for 3 cases of 12 bottles (so ... 36, 16oz bottles) which should be sufficient to bottle the 4 gallons of beer I am making.
Here's a pic of two of the 32oz bottles:
Going to wait one more week (ugh!!) to taste ... the likely that bottling will commence over next weekend ... getting there ...
Cheers / Proost!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Mike's Homebrewing Notes - First 2 Mr. Beer batches - 12-Jan-2009
Fermenter #1 (Honey Maiboch) looks good to me ... krausen has formed ... very cloudy with small bubbles apparent throughout ...
Fermenter #2 (Brew Ha Ha) looks good as well ... same ultra-cloudiness with bubbling from the yeasties ...
Fermenter #1 (Honey Maiboch) looks good to me ... krausen has formed ... very cloudy with small bubbles apparent throughout ...
Fermenter #2 (Brew Ha Ha) looks good as well ... same ultra-cloudiness with bubbling from the yeasties ...
